History in the United Kingdom
How the country named, judged and eventually stopped punishing sex outside marriage.
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The 'bawdy courts': how England's church courts judged fornication
For centuries, fornication and adultery in England fell to the church courts, nicknamed 'bawdy courts', not the common law. Offenders could be ordered to do public penance or be excommunicated. Blackstone noted their 'feeble coercion' in the 1760s. By the late eighteenth century this jurisdiction over lay people had fallen into disuse; York's cause papers (1300–1858) preserve thousands of cases.
View the topic →1650: when England made adultery a capital crime
Yes, briefly. An Act of 10 May 1650, passed by the Rump Parliament of the English Commonwealth, made adultery by a married woman and her partner a felony punishable by death. Fornication between unmarried people brought three months in prison. Brothel keepers faced whipping, branding and, for a second offence, death. The Act lapsed with the Restoration in 1660.
View the topic →Kirk sessions: how Scotland's churches disciplined fornication
After the Reformation of 1560, each Scottish parish's kirk session, made up of the minister and elders, policed morals. Unmarried couples suspected of fornication, often revealed by a pregnancy, were summoned, questioned and made to do public penance in church, sometimes on a 'stool of repentance'. Robert Burns and Jean Armour were summoned at Mauchline in 1786.
View the topic →Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act: the end of clandestine weddings
Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753, in force from 25 March 1754, ended clandestine marriages in England and Wales by requiring weddings in an Anglican church after banns or a licence. Because the Act did not apply to Scotland, where a declaration before witnesses still sufficed, eloping English couples headed for Gretna Green, just over the border.
View the topic →One rule for men, another for women: Victorian sexual morality
In Victorian Britain, sex outside marriage was judged far more harshly in women than in men. Under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, a husband could divorce for adultery alone, while a wife had to prove an aggravating fault. The Contagious Diseases Acts of the 1860s targeted women suspected of prostitution and were repealed in 1886.
View the topic →The Foundling Hospital: London's answer to abandoned children
The Foundling Hospital was a London charity founded by Thomas Coram under a royal charter of 1739. It admitted its first babies on 25 March 1741 and, by the early nineteenth century, mainly took in children born outside marriage. Mothers left tokens so a child could be identified later. Around 25,000 children passed through its care.
View the topic →Should the law punish private sin? Wolfenden, Hart and Devlin
The Hart-Devlin debate was a clash between two British jurists over whether criminal law should enforce morality. The 1957 Wolfenden Report separated private morality from crime. Lord Devlin argued that a society may protect its shared morality by law; H. L. A. Hart, in Law, Liberty and Morality (1963), replied that only harm to others justifies punishment.
View the topic →The forced adoptions of babies born to unmarried mothers in post-war Britain
Between 1949 and 1976, around 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were adopted in England and Wales, according to a 2022 Joint Committee on Human Rights report. Many mothers were sent to mother and baby homes and pressed to give up children they wanted to keep. In March 2023 the then government expressed sorrow but declined a formal apology.
View the topic →Why English lovers eloped to Gretna Green
After the Marriage Act of 1753 tightened the rules in England and Wales, couples who lacked parental consent or wanted a quick wedding crossed into Scotland, where a declaration before witnesses still created a valid marriage. Gretna Green, just over the border, became famous for blacksmith weddings. A residence rule came in 1856; declaration marriages ended in 1940.
View the topic →The Contagious Diseases Acts: how Victorian law policed women's bodies
The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869 allowed police in certain garrison and naval towns to subject women suspected of prostitution to medical examination and detention, in an effort to curb venereal disease among soldiers and sailors. Campaigners led by Josephine Butler attacked them as unjust to women. They were repealed in 1886.
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